Barista Jemuel Lampe Is Using Coffee To Steer People In The Netherlands Away From Crime

When Jemuel Lampe was 13 years old, he was arrested for the first time. Life wasn't easy growing up in one of the roughest neighbourhoods of The Hague in The Netherlands. In the decade that followed, Lampe was in and out of prison six times. Today, he is a social entrepreneur, a passionate barista, and a public speaker. Having managed to turn his life around, he has made it his life's mission to help others do the same.

On a bitingly cold winter morning in Zaandam, near Amsterdam, I met Lampe and heard his life story: a tough childhood, bad choices, the wrong company and the lure of easy money. But also one about serendipitous encounters, second chances and the belief that anything is possible if you apply your mind to it.

His company, Zuivere Koffie (or Pure Coffee), is the world's first prison-based coffee roasting company. He chose the name because those who go to prison carry a stigma, and their reputation is often tainted for life. It's the exact opposite of what is considered pure. Lampe is living proof that if given a second chance, one can change one's life completely. Sometimes, getting an opportunity to change is what makes all the difference. 

Between his prison terms, Lampe worked at a juice bar, squeezing oranges, when he met an entrepreneur who saw another side to him. “He really saw me. He told me that I had so much potential. Those are words I had never heard in my life. He gave me his number and told me to call him,” recalls Lampe. Later, when he was back in prison, those words stayed with him. 

“I was 19 and I had a child, and that's when I started thinking about my life. When I got out of prison, I called him. I asked him what he meant when he said I have so much potential. He told me, 'If you just believe in yourself, you can overcome anything.' Everyone I knew was either in prison or had already died. He gave me my first long-term job with a contract for one year, and I became an ice cream scooper,” says Lampe. 

Having a stable job and meeting different people changed Lampe's outlook and gave him a taste of what life devoid of crime looks like. However, he succumbed to temptation and was arrested again. “I was inside for 58 days, but it was 58 days to reconsider my life and think about my child. That's when I decided to change for good—to change my thinking and become an entrepreneur,” he says. This time around, he threw himself into work, leaving no time to think of anything else. “I used my creativity and knowledge differently, for marketing and to grow the business. From selling 100 ice creams a day, we moved up to selling 1,000 ice creams a day.”

Not a coffee drinker himself, coffee came into Lampe's life by chance. The store had a coffee machine that he began to tinker with, with the help of an Italian expat. As his coffee improved, his store gained popularity. Seeing Lampe's skill in brewing a cup of good coffee, the company that used to maintain the machine entered him into the Dutch Barista Championships in 2004. Lampe ranked sixth in the competition. Work commitments didn't allow him to participate in the following year, but he trained someone who went on to win the competition. Companies around the Netherlands and in Europe began to invite him to collaborate with them. 

A changed man, Lampe had not forgotten how a second chance had made all the difference. Inspired by celebrity chef Gordon Ramsay's British television series, Gordon Behind Bars, he decided to use coffee to help people inside prisons. He says, “We forget that a person in prison is a human being who doesn't commit a crime just like that. There's always a story behind it and everyone deserves a second chance.” In 2014, Lampe set up a coffee roasting company employing inmates, but it was no easy task. “It was difficult for prison directors to give someone like me who was incarcerated in the past an opportunity to work inside the prison, while shipping bags of coffee beans from Colombia. There were a lot of challenges to overcome but I persisted.”

Today, at any given time, Pure Coffee works with 70 people across prisons in the Netherlands, producing coffee and running a bakery, supplying products to companies throughout the country, including to the business class section of national carrier KLM Dutch Royal Airlines. Over the years, through the Zuivere Koffie Street University program, 200 people received training and have found jobs in restaurants and catering businesses once released from prison, thus significantly lowering recidivism. Apart from providing livelihoods, Pure Coffee fosters a sense of community amongst those who have lost a sense of purpose and belief in their abilities. The government recognised their efforts and Pure Coffee was named the Best Government Innovation for 2023 among 250 Dutch contenders.

Lampe counts many people as instrumental in his journey and says he couldn't have done it alone. The first prison director Lampe worked with continues to be his mentor and his words still guide him: You have to learn to see the prison also as a place of recovery. A key can close a door, but it can also open one.